SWAMIJI ... 1

SWAMIJI ... 1

Swamiji wanted Indian men to cultivate manliness by giving up all effeminacy of behaviour and culture. Strength was his message to mankind and to bring forth this strength he exhorted the youth to build up a strong physique, strong nerves and a strong will.

Education was to him assimilation of healthful ideas out of which character was to be built, not a mass of heterogeneous ideas, unassimilated and running riot in the brain that confounded understanding more than clarified it. Purity was to be the basis of the academic training following a modern variant of the ancient Gurukul system with scientific and spiritual training complementing each other. The whole focus would be the training of the mind so that it learnt to master the senses and could direct them as desired, concentration of the internal forces that would lead to individual and collective well-being and lead both towards the endpoint of evolution, disembodied liberation (videha mukti).

On the social plane Swamiji urged men to make 'renunciation and service' as their twin motto so that the lasting welfare of all could be effected. He urged his countrymen to make religion their staple diet with other things like politics, science, arts and culture playing a harmonious second fiddle to it. This he said taking into account India's history and heritage which was predominantly spiritual.

Swamiji exhorted his countrymen to be thinkers, original men with innovative ideas who would refuse to imitate the West or any other dominant culture that was directly or indirectly thrust on them, but would through the inventive genius inherent in the race work out their own destiny along the grain of its natural evolution. 

Written by Sugata Bose